Sketchwaiting Stories

 

7/15/26 Social Security office

6/11/26 medical waiting room

The sketches I make while waiting for someone or something to happen are usually just ways to “kill time” (I’ve always thought that was an odd expression: Why would we want to kill the only resource we truly have in life?). Yet when I look back at them, I realize that almost all vividly remind me of the circumstances in which they were made, even if the subjects are “nothing” (which almost always defines a sketchwaiting sketch), and even if I haven’t written any notes. Or maybe I should say that the sketches evoke the feelings associated with the circumstances.

5/17/26 waterfront

8/6/26 Green Lake PCC

For example, although I didn’t note the temperature, I know that Aug. 6 (above) was a hot day. I didn’t want to turn on the oven to cook, so I went to PCC to get a pizza. I could tell that people were using the café area simply to enjoy the AC.

7/15/26 Social Security office

9/11/26 Federal Way light rail station

The yellow sketch on June 11 (top of post) was made in the waiting room of Greg’s orthopedist, who had examined a broken arm after a fall. He seemed to be declining in other ways, but the fracture was healing well, which gave me hope.

A month later on July 15, I was in the Social Security office with our marriage license, applying for widow’s benefits.

Every sketch tells a story, large and small.

9/14/26 Green Lake

9/16/26 South Lake Union

Highly Flammable

 

9/16/26

Remember the chair I so proudly assembled? The past several months, it had developed a bad squeak. Every time I leaned back or moved, it made increasingly loud noises of the type that drive me crazy. Fortunately, I had saved the tiny L-shaped screwdriver that came with it. I tried tightening all the screws, but that didn’t help. Maybe WD-40?

Googling gave me the answer: Silicone spray. I came home from the hardware store with a can of one of the most toxic, hazardous products I’d ever brought into the house. Highly flammable! Do not smoke while using! Avoid inhaling or contact with skin! Use only in well-ventilated area! Ingestion may cause death! So many dire warnings!

It took me a while to mentally and physically prep for the dangerous operation. The screws had to be loosened so that the threads could be lubed with the silicone. I did that, then put on a pair of disposable gloves, spread newspaper on the floor near the open front door, and had a rag handy for possible drips (as advised by the instructions). Finally ready, I went to open the can – and the cap wouldn’t come off. Unscrewing didn’t work, and the cap was slightly tapered, so getting a grip on it to pull up was impossible.

Fine. I walked to the hardware store again. The young man who helped me gave the cap a slight push sideways, and it popped right off. Kind and cheerful, he never made me feel stupid, but I did anyway.

I walked home in tears, partly because I felt like an idiot. Mostly, though, it was just one more of a million things I took for granted. If I had complained about the squeaky chair, Greg would have said, “Hold on, I got this,” and dashed downstairs for the appropriate tool and toxic substance. Ten minutes later: “There you go. All fixed.”

“Thanks, sweetie.”

Thanks, sweetie. Then, now, and every time in the future that it happens again: Another way to miss you.

Another Yellow Tree

9/15/26 Maple Leaf neighborhood

Although I wasn’t able to ID it, this yellow tree is different from the Frisia black locusts I sketched last week. It has the same coloration: Lime green leaves most of the year that turn bright lemon yellow in September.

Color note: I made a lot of fuss last week about looking for the right yellow/blue mix to get as close as possible to Caran d’Ache’s Dark Phthalocyanine Green (719). As soon as I got out on location, though, I sort of forgot the plan and instead carried on in my usual manner: Applied the light and medium values of greens for the tree’s foliage (and bright yellow for the sunlit part), then applied Night Blue (149) to the shaded side of the tree. And guess what? Even though I didn’t use the assigned yellow to mix with it, Night Blue did its job beautifully anyway: It mixed with and darkened the various greens I had applied first, and the shaded side looks fairly close to Dark Phthalocyanine Green.

Lesson learned: None. I might learn to stop overthinking colors if it weren’t so much geeky fun!

Technical note: See those leaves in the foreground tree? I dabbed the waterbrush directly onto the blunt back end of the Night Blue crayon (which faces up in my bag’s crayon case) to paint those on. I really like how Neocolor II crayons can be used just like watercolor pans this way – and appear just like paint, too. 

Thornton Creek Media Tests

 

9/12/26 Thornton Creek Channel (non-soluble colored pencils)

It’s mid-September, and that can mean only one thing: I’m gearing up for both InkTober and Pencilvember! For the past few years, I’ve been devoting each challenge month to a specific subject theme, such as ears or pets, with all drawings done from photo references. This year, I thought I’d go back to my roots of trying to draw as much as possible from life and without a theme. The challenge would be to stick to one medium that I rarely use for any length of time. It’s an effective way to get past any resistance and to practice a medium that doesn’t come easily. (Years ago, using ballpoint pens exclusively during InkTober got me to really enjoy and appreciate the medium.)

 

Derwent Drawing and a couple of Prismacolors

Without making commitments yet, I recently took a couple of media out with me to Thornton Creek Channel to see how they might do. Derwent Drawing pencils (or dry colored pencils in general) are a definite contender for Pencilvember. For a month now, I’ve been anticipating that fall might be a great time to give these pencils a solid try on location. As mentioned in that previous post, my plan would be to stay small with my sketches so that they would remain relatively fast. I’ve been so dependent on water to do the heavy lifting of building strong values with water-soluble pencils or crayons that using non-soluble pencils would be time-consuming. Or would it? Maybe this is a good time to see what shortcuts or techniques I can develop to make this medium more on-location friendly.

The sketch above, about two-thirds of an A5-ish page in my Stillman & Birn Zeta sketchbook, probably took twice as long as a similar size sketch using water-soluble materials. I’ll have to go even smaller for the same efficiency.

Staedtler Pigment Arts Brush Pens

I’m less certain about my candidate InkTober. For this trial run, I took a small set of Staedtler Pigment Arts Brush Pens, which I learned about from Roz Stendahl several months ago. Containing waterproof, pigment-based ink, they are similar to Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Brush pens, which I’ve been using for many years. The Staedtler pens are significantly cheaper than Faber-Castell, however. I go through Pitt pens fairly rapidly, especially Cold Gray III, which has long been a favorite for shading. The last time I needed to reorder Pitts, I thought I’d give Staedtler a try.

6 of the 12 colors in the "Nature" set

Although the lower price is appealing, one major disadvantage of the Staedtlers is that they aren’t available open stock. I chose the set of 12 “Nature” colors, which has a decent selection for landscape and urban sketching. I sort of enjoy the challenge of a limited, pre-selected palette that I didn’t even choose myself. But for 31 days during the height of fall color? I might need to supplement with Pitt brush pens, which I own in a much wider color range.

Perhaps the greater hurdle with brush markers is that I have never cared for the marker-ish look. My engineer brother once described the violin as analog (the ability to modulate from one note to the next) while the piano is digital (on or off). Along the same lines, colored pencils (or almost any dry media) are analog, while markers are digital. If I compare the two sketches here of the same scene, I certainly prefer the modulated look of colored pencils. (I didn’t like my recent attempts at Jimi Hendrix Park at all.) Maybe I just haven’t learned to use markers in a way that appeals to me.

Who knows – maybe I’ll declare December mixed-media month and use colored pencils and markers together! Past attempts usually haven’t been satisfying; brush markers have a way of taking over the party, no matter who else is in the room. But if art challenges like InkTober and Pencilvember aren’t for learning, why take part? I’m game.

This is the thumbnail I made to test the values and composition before
making the color sketches. The best part of it is the comment I overheard.

USk Rides to the Eastside

 

9/13/26 Northwest African American Museum

I woke to hard rain on the roof and windows.

It was the kind of morning that if I hadn’t been the lead, I would have skipped the USk outing. Instead, I boarded the light rail in damp jeans to an outing I had helped plan and had been looking forward to ever since the 2 Line to the Eastside opened last spring.

The first stop of our two-part outing was Judkins Park Station across the street from Jimi Hendrix Park. I was relieved and happy not to be alone on this wet day – a small group of hardy sketchers joined me! Although most stayed in the park to sketch in the light drizzle, I ducked into the Northwest African American Museum, which I hadn’t been to in years (above). Its exhibits tell illuminating stories of noteworthy Black Seattle residents and other significant national figures and their contributions to American history and culture.

I found a window at the museum with a view toward the park’s large sculpture, “Butterfly Canopy,” which I tend to sketch every time I’m in the park. After that, with a short time left before the throwdown, I attempted a strange (and unsuccessful) composition of the edge of the Butterfly and the top of the museum (both below).

Jimi Hendrix Park

After our throwdown, a handful of sketchers rode on to Part 2 of the outing: Bellevue Downtown Station. Most had not yet taken the light rail across Lake Washington, so it was fun to know that our outing was their first opportunity.

Riding the rails across the lake!

Famished by the time we got to Bellevue, I made lunch at Café Hagen* my first stop. It was as good a place as any to finish a page of sketches for the outing’s second leg. Although we didn’t get the best weather, a day of sketching with USk is always better than a day without!

Cafe Hagen, downtown Bellevue

* If you’re curious about my comment on the sketch of my Nordic Cheese Toast, I’ll give you the full review: Although the prettiest toast I’d ever seen, and while its other ingredients were delicious, the bread was so thick, hearty and crusty that I couldn’t penetrate it with the ordinary utensils I was given. With much struggle, I had to dig out softer bread from the center. Although I have done this only a few times in my life, I took the toast back to the counter and explained my difficulty to the servers. I asked them to tell the chef to try cutting the toast with the same type of knife I had been given. I doubt it had ever been tested; perhaps a hacksaw would do the job.

Lovely but inpenetrable

No More Juju

 

9/10/26 Green Lake

This little pinwheel palm had unpleasant associations for me.

In December 2019, I had just started my walk/sketch fitness program (which I’ve maintained to this day). As with any new endeavor, I was still freshly enthusiastic, despite the cold and sometimes wet weather. A few months later on one of those walks, I had stopped in front of Duke’s restaurant at Green Lake for my sketch reward. After sketching this palm tree, I tried to take a trophy photo, dropped my brand new phone and chipped the screen. I take trophy shots of my sketches nearly daily, and that was the only time I have ever dropped my phone; surely the palm had something to do with my bad luck. Shortly thereafter, COVID happened, and I came to associate sketching that poor, innocent palm with both bad things.

Remembering all of that as I walked past the palm at Duke’s recently, I decided I needed to sketch it again to eliminate the bad juju.

Training Season

 

9/10/26 Frisia black locust and Crimson King Norway maple, Maple Leaf neighborhood

I haven't officially declared leaf-peeping season yet, but I'm in training. A good warm-up were these bright yellow trees. Most of the year, their foliage is lime green, then in the fall, they turn lemon yellow and then yellow-orange. I think of them as “citrus trees,” but they’re actually Frisia black locusts.

The very dark reddish-black tree in front of the locust is a Crimson King Norway maple (above). For that confounding color, I used a dark sepia Derwent Inktense pencil with a light layer of magenta Caran d’Ache Museum Aquarelle pencil over that. Trying to get that hue reminded me of a similar challenge I gave myself during the first pandemic summer with some ornamental plums I’d spotted. They also have a deep purple, nearly black hue.

9/10/26 Frisia black locust, Maple Leaf neighborhood